The need in painting, drawing and writing exists as long as the human being himself and will exist as long as human being will exist. The graphical or painted in color image cannot be explained or interpreted by the other means, for example by voice, for inputting in the computer. That is why people are searching and will be always searching for newer technologies satisfying this need.
There are several challenges for solving the problem of free-hand drawing and writing and corresponding requirements for an input control device, which should be a hand held tool: the relative coordinates of the tool movement should be tracked; the tool motion should be precisely controlled by a movement of fingers and/or a hand; in case, when there is no display for continuous monitoring of the drawing or writing and providing a feedback for correction of the exact position of the pen or brush tip, the exact coordinates of the device position should be tracked.
The first requirement is realized in a computer mouse and in theory the mouse can be used for drawing. However it is not convenient because the mouse does not satisfy the second requirement—movement with the fingers. It is not a pen-like device. Pen-type or stylus-type computer input devices are known for more than 25 years. First technologies were based on either passive pad with a coordinate system and an optical device capable to determine the movement of the stylus relative to a coordinate system on the pad or based on the sensitive pad, which can be touched by a pen-type device moved by fingers and/or hand and which can determine the coordinates of the pen. The other technologies were focusing on creating an artificial external “field” (similar to sensitive pad) for determining the position of the pen type device. These fields include light, ultrasound, EM radiation, RF radiation, magnetic field, electrostatic field, etc. If there are two or three sources of this field then it might be possible to determine the position of the pen and interpret it into a trajectory of a pen movement. Disadvantage of all these technologies is a need of additional equipment besides the pen itself, what can be bulky, requires set up operations, etc.
One of the latest technologies is based on optical pattern recognition and uses a special paper with a grid of patterns, which are used as a coordinate system for the pen. Due to the unique combination of the patterns on each page it becomes possible to keep track of the pages and documents. However the need in a special paper or in printing this special paper makes application of this technology limited by digitizing handwritten forms in medical applications, government documents processing and similar applications. This technology still didn't solve the problem of using the napkin for a drawing a sketch of an invention and instantaneously inputting it into a computer.
There was also an attempt to miniaturize the computer mouse to a size and shape of a pen. However, this technology is bulky, expensive, doesn't provide an ink and doesn't provide a sensing the pressure of the pen to the writing surface.
Therefore, there is a need for low-cost simple universal input control device, which can be used as a pen, pencil, brush and joystick and which would not require any additional equipment or special paper.